


The Stillness and The Silence

by stonecoldsilly



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/happy ending, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Horror, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:33:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27217975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stonecoldsilly/pseuds/stonecoldsilly
Summary: This must be the twentieth cycle. Twenty or thereabouts.He’s tried everything he can think of. He begs, he screams, he pleads, he argues as convincingly as Oxenfurt ever taught him.Geralt doesn’t listen.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 34
Kudos: 556
Collections: Sordid Saovine - The Witcher Halloween Event





	The Stillness and The Silence

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A song you know's begun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27214447) by [bladeangel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bladeangel/pseuds/bladeangel). 



> so i caught 'a song you know's begun' on the tumblr and it completely spiralled me into this, appreciated very much thank you! also inspired by all the amazing timeloop fic we have, lucky us!

...

This must be the twentieth cycle. Twenty or thereabouts.

He’s tried everything he can think of. He begs, he screams, he pleads, he argues as convincingly as Oxenfurt ever taught him.

Geralt doesn’t listen.

Geralt never listens.

Every time, he watches the light in those yellow eyes fading, betrayal clear on Geralt’s face, the realisation that Jaskier knew this would happen and did nothing as the witch guts him over and over. 

He wakes up each time about half an hour before they reach the cottage, but it’s never enough time, and then Geralt dies, and he runs from the hounds, crushed between snapping jaws and torn to shreds, and then wakes up again.

There is no rest, no time to plan, he just wakes up and Geralt dies, Geralt dies, Geralt dies.

He’s tried twenty times, and nothing has worked so far. 

Geralt just ignores him, or waves a hand in his direction dismissively, or walks on without him, or casts Axii on him when Jaskier loses his temper, and leaves him trapped, stuck motionless and watching from behind his own eyes, unable to scream or run when the enormous hounds step out from the witch’s shadow, and those cycles are the worst. 

They like to play with their food.

He can never picture the witch’s face, only a shrivel of her eager voice seeping through his head and twisting his thoughts. She fades from his view even as he tries to keep his gaze in the direction of the doorway, his eyes sliding off whatever form she twists from the shades that bend to her every whim. 

The walk to the dark little hut would be bad enough, knowing what is to come, but her presence infests the forest around them as well, a deepening of the dark, a thick malignant blanket of malice that even he can sense as they near her lair.

He vaguely remembers being told about the contract, back at some nameless inn, in a village he barely noticed for how alike it was to all the others. If the people were a little poorer, if there were more glares than usual, if there was some dim warning that he might have missed, he does not know it.

He works out that it never takes more than an hour, each loop, and so it has been less than a day since that first awful death, when he screamed vengeance and took up Geralt’s fallen sword himself, desperate to avenge him, or at least die with him. 

Then the bright hope he felt when the second loop began, and he told Geralt everything he could think of, begged him to leave it alone, only to be ignored. That was the worst one, he thinks, wearily.

It feels like longer than a day, to be trapped outside of time, to watch Geralt die, over and over.

The real world seems like a story that he was told long ago. Sunlight seems hollow, when he tries to recall it, and he cannot remember any of the songs he used to sing when he reaches for them, tunes slipping like ash through his mind, only the whispering of the witch humming through his bones.

He wakes and begs and runs and dies.

Sometimes he wishes they died together, so he wouldn’t have to watch, wouldn’t have the last rasping rattle of Geralt choking on his own blood echoing in his memory. 

He never turns away. 

Geralt always looks to him, and his face always cracks to pleading disbelief at the end, that Jaskier knew and did not help him. 

He has to plan quickly, he has to make the most out of every loop, desperate to find something that will make Geralt _listen_ to him.

And the hounds are on his heels even now, but he runs, trying to make it further this time, just so he has a moment to _think_ , a moment to work out what to do next, to try and escape the next one.

The hounds are toying with him, most of the pack behind him, but a few cutting through the brush on either side to head him off and close the trap.

He runs, heaving for breath, catching flashes of inky-black coats and their eyeshine glowing red though the gloom. 

They are silent when they chase, only the glint of sharp teeth in the feeble moonlight betraying how close they are.

He hasn’t mapped the forest well enough yet to hold them off for much longer, and he knows there’s no true escape for him, not while Geralt lies dead and cold behind him, but he runs regardless. 

Perhaps he will run through this forest forever, perhaps there is no escape from the cycle, perhaps the witch cursed him merely to relive his last moments for eternity.

That way madness lies, and he has no time to dwell on it, and yet all the time there is.

The hounds are gaining on him, and Geralt is dead, Geralt is always dead, even when he lives and breathes and snarls at Jaskier, he is dead.

He has not found anything Geralt will listen to yet, not one single word that the Witcher will trust. 

Perhaps there is nothing he can say.

It could merely be a dream that the witch has spun, where he has no hope of changing anything yet to come, and yet while he breathes, he must still try.

He sees the little stream that he made it to last time appear in the distance, and then that unearthly howl goes up.

A shrill shrieking, like no dog that ever walked in daylight, and he tries to run faster, but it is not enough, not once they sound off. 

A snapping at his leg.

The cry of agony that escapes him when his ankle is crushed between massive jaws is almost enough to drown out the sound of the hunt, and they move onto the rest of him while he screams, but the call of the hounds rings in his head even as he wakes to the next loop.

He is upright and walking behind Geralt, and he staggers, always unsettled by the transition from lying to upright, from dead to alive. 

He shakes helplessly, hands trembling too hard to conceal. The sudden quickening of his breath earns him a brief glance from the Witcher, who walks on dismissively, no doubt thinking him merely afraid of the dark forest.

He is afraid, but this Geralt doesn’t know why yet.

Gods be good he won’t ever have to. 

Jaskier steadies his breathing as best he can.

Half an hour, only half an hour, at most, before Geralt dies. 

His mind is still caught in the steel of the hound’s jaws and the shrill honey of the witch’s words, though he cannot remember them; her voice is whispering, always whispering, and he has to drown it out, has to _make her stop._

Gods, he can’t think of anything to say. Anything he hasn’t already tried, anything that will make Geralt believe him.

He falters, once he makes the connection and realises. 

Geralt marches on, to his death, and Jaskier’s knees give way. He slumps in the dirt, defeated.

He just needs a minute, to think, to rest.

Geralt stops and turns to face him, expression twisted into a snarl at the delay, and Jaskier just stares at him blankly.

‘There is nothing I can say, is there? It’s not the words. It’s me.’

He reaches a trembling hand up to his cheek, and the tears he thought were wrung out of him hours, weeks, months, centuries ago are dripping hot trails down his face.

He closes his eyes tightly. He is talking to a dead man anyway, no matter if the Witcher is standing in front of him or if he has abandoned him in the woods.

‘It’s _me._ You won’t listen to me, specifically.’

The realisation chokes him, and he had no idea he had this much petty hurt left in him.

‘No matter what I say, no matter how many times I warn you that I’ve seen you die at the witch’s hands, you won’t listen.’

He is crying too hard to hear the Witcher’s footsteps fading in the distance.

‘I’ve walked with you on your Path for twenty years, and you won’t listen to me.’

If Geralt was with someone else, trapped in this loop, if Yennefer was in his place, or someone more useful than a tagalong bard that Geralt never even asked for, then would he listen? 

‘I didn’t realise.’

He is the reason Geralt is about to die, dead before his eyes, dying as he speaks. Geralt does not trust him, does not respect him enough to listen even when he begs. 

‘I’m sorry. It’s my fault we keep dying like this.’

He is sobbing now, alone and begging for someone, anyone to hear. The words slip out, faster than he can catch them, and he collapses with exhaustion on the ground, weeping into the cold dirt and whispering promises to the dry crackle of frost on the leaves.

‘No matter what else, I’ve thought of you as a friend, the very best I’ve ever had. And I know…’ His voice cracks. 

The truth is hardly enough to send him over the edge, not with the more pressing matter of their endless deaths, but it still wounds him regardless. 

‘I know now… that you never felt the same. But I won’t stop fighting it. I’ll get us out of the loop somehow. I swear it.’

His breath shudders in his lungs, and he promises the gods themselves that he will never rest until Geralt is free of the spell, even if he dies in the breaking. He does not know how he could possibly live in the world again, with the witch’s muttering hissing trapped in his head, with the light fading in Geralt’s eyes, with the hounds always behind him.

‘I won’t bother you again. I won’t. I swear it. If we survive… if ever we make it out of this forest. If this curse breaks, and you still live, I will never follow you again. I didn’t realise. Geralt, I’m so sorry.’

Time is running out, and yet there is always more of it, but he cries for this Geralt, of this loop, who will die alone. 

‘I just want you to live. I can’t watch you die again. Please… please don’t make me.’

The hounds will come soon, but he can’t muster the energy to move. 

‘I won’t leave you behind.’ He whispers hopelessly, though Geralt cannot hear him, and would not listen even if he could. 

The cold is rising around him, caught in the spiral of her rising power, and he manages to calm his breath, and turn his head slightly to stare vacantly out into the trickles of dank mist hanging in the dark of the woods.

He sits up, at least, determined to meet this death as upright as he can manage. 

A dead man greets him, Geralt staring down at him, pale with shock and wreathed with fog.

‘Jaskier,’ he says. ‘I’m listening.’

...

**Author's Note:**

> all my love to Levi for her assistance <3
> 
> i didn't think i'd manage to post anything in time for sordid saovine but goddamn this hit me on the head!
> 
> EDIT: I WON THIRSTYOPOSSUM’S UNDYING LOVE AND ALSO THEIR BEAUTIFUL [ART](https://twitter.com/thirstyopossum/status/1345772654599532546?s=21) PLEASE I BEG ITS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING IN ALL THE WORLD AHHHHHHHHHH


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